After finishing breakfast, the first place Biare visited was none other than the library of Duke Ruschef’s mansion.

For the time being, the security watching her would be strict. All she could do was gather information from the mansion’s library.

In urgent times, one had to be cautious, and turn moments of carelessness into opportunities.

Since Biare usually enjoyed reading books, no one found it strange that she visited the study.

The Ruschef father and son were keeping an eye on her for different reasons, so they chose to go to work early in the morning.

Moreover, the Duke said he would take care of dinner on his own due to merchant guild business and return home late at night.

Therefore, it would be more convenient for her to move during the time her father was attending to his duties.

After returning from the underworld, Biare began to grow suspicious that the Duke might be a dangerous entity that should neither be fully trusted nor betrayed.

Though she was trying her best not to show it, it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to treat her father as usual.

That’s not to say she didn’t love Fredick Ruschef, the master of this ducal residence.

Biare sincerely respected and loved her father as much as the Gaizen and Ruschef families.

However, in her mind, hundreds of resentful questions towards the Duke were tangled like a skein of thread.

Her fragile younger brother, who had only cried while searching for their mother, suddenly wanted to learn swordsmanship from Sir Reardon when he turned eleven.

There must have been clues she had missed during the 4 years since then, but finding them was by no means easy.

“Gaizen, what secret are you hiding?”

‘And why did you have to follow father’s words?’

The Ruschef family, once mere commoner merchants, had grown terrifyingly powerful in just a few generations after receiving their ducal title.

Biare thought she knew the background well through her education, but suspicions that there might be secrets even she didn’t know filled her mind.

Heaving a big sigh and unable to hide her complicated expression, Biare slowly examined the interior of the library.

The massive library, which only those of ducal bloodline could use, was neatly organized with all kinds of books.

It was the kind of book she wouldn’t have given a second glance to normally, so it took some effort to find what she wanted.

After struggling for a while, Biare discovered the book she was looking for and carefully pulled out a few old volumes, looking around.

‘At least I should be able to get information about the family.’

She gathered not only the family history books that taught what nobles should know, but also the genealogies of both direct and collateral lines, and sat down in a chair.

It seemed she wouldn’t be satisfied until she saw the true nature of the Ruschef family she loved so dearly with her own eyes.

As the recent events were still hard to believe, one corner of her heart was filled with anxiety.

She felt a lump in her throat as she recalled Gaizen, who was too busy hiding things to even make a proper excuse.

The family history book she turned page by page was written densely and tightly, like a perfectly assembled puzzle, without showing even the smallest gap.

It formed such a solid and complete shape that she wondered if she might have been mistaken.

Biare sat with a displeased expression, deflated by content no different from what she had learned from her grandfather and father in childhood.

She let out a shallow sigh, unsure if she could check all the piled-up old books today.

After carefully examining the genealogies of both direct and collateral lines, Biare felt no certainty in what she was doing, as even this yielded no particular gain.

Unable to find even a shred of a clue, she was just floundering in the swamp of despair, with nothing giving her any answers.

If she were the Duke, she wouldn’t have placed such important documents in a space accessible to anyone of the bloodline. Biare furrowed her brow and then decided to look in a slightly different direction.

She needed to clearly ascertain whether there existed in the world other magic using different time-spaces related to the ‘Eye of Truth’.

However, in the Ruschef family library, it was difficult to find even the letter ‘M’ for magic.

In the Empire of Marta, which taboos magic, it was natural not to even possess books related to magic rather than risk suspicion from the imperial family by keeping magic-related books.

Even for a family that always acts as a loyal dog to the imperial family, if content related to magic books were discovered, they would be arrested for deception and blasphemy, only waiting for the day of execution.

The power of the ‘Eye of Truth’ had been secretly inherited from her mother’s ancestors, continuing the lineage of elves.

As human blood mixed in later generations, the elven appearance disappeared without a trace, but the ‘Eye of Truth’ was passed down more certainly.

This fact would be information that even Bernawood at No. 34 could never find out.

Moreover, the Duke was someone who strictly selected and considered even merchant guild goods so as not to fall out of the imperial family’s favor.

As such, there was no way to obtain information about magic within the ducal residence from the start.

She needed to find out not only the secrets the Ruschef family was concealing but also information about the Verdeum family to which Dension belonged.

Realizing she still had a long way to go, Biare felt suffocated.

As she couldn’t return empty-handed, she racked her brains to think of the necessary information.

‘First, the underworld or…’

Biare took out a book related to the underworld from the ducal library, which had various books due to running a large merchant guild, and leaned against the bookshelf to open it.

The book was full of information she already knew, but she couldn’t simply brush it off.

‘Did mother know something?’

The Duchess Ruschef was from a commoner background in the underworld where criminals gathered.

The current Duke, who was a viscount at the time, visited there for some reason and the two fell in love.

Though it was difficult to know the exact details, because the Duke’s heart was firm, they were able to marry despite the family’s opposition.

Thanks to the Duke’s preemptive measures to silence the protesting collateral family members and prevent talk about her birth, the Duchess was able to have her identity laundered as coming from a local noble family.

Of course, Biare came to know this fact when she happened to overhear someone drunk talking about it at a collateral family gathering.

At the time, not long after losing her mother, Biare was shocked and went crying to her father to ask about the truth of the matter.

Even now, she got goosebumps remembering the expression the Duke made for a moment, who usually gave love unstintingly to his children.

In the end, the person who carelessly leaked those words, including their family, still couldn’t set foot in the ducal residence to this day.

One could say the punishment was somewhat lenient, but it was an unavoidable choice as making a big fuss would have led to the secret of the Duchess’s identity spreading in an instant.

Biare also didn’t ask any more about the Duchess’s birth after that day.

The mother she remembered was someone who sincerely loved her family and took good care of even the retainers.

If her mother were still alive, she could only make the meaningless guess that at least Gaizen wouldn’t have become so miserably broken.

In any case, the most likely conjecture about the Duke couple’s first meeting was that the Duke, like Gaizen, was highly likely to have done some work in the underworld.

‘Then that would mean the Ruschef family is connected to the underworld.’

The family she had loved all this time seemed like mere fantasy, like a bubble without any proper shape.

Biare bit her lip hard at the countless despairing thoughts that arose.

At times like this, she must not collapse. She had too many people to protect to flounder in the swamp herself.

‘I have to find out on my own.’

What Gaizen was afraid of, and what he wanted to hide.

By now, the red sunset was stretching across the western sky as dusk fell.

Though Biare hadn’t managed to find out anything properly, she consoled herself that at least the situation was better than when she knew nothing before.

As she had never stayed in the library this long before, she stood up to prevent any possible misunderstandings.

After finishing organizing the old books, she carefully opened the door, holding a novel to her chest.

The long corridor felt even longer than usual due to her anxious heart, and she hurried her steps, afraid of being caught by someone.

For her, the ducal residence was no longer a comfortable space. It was just a snake’s nest that could bare its fangs at any time.

Fortunately, perhaps because it was late in the evening, she didn’t encounter any servants.

It was thanks to her giving notice in advance that she wouldn’t have dinner before visiting the library.

Just as Biare was about to breathe a sigh of relief after confirming there was no one around,

“Where is our daughter coming from?”

At the refreshing voice from behind, she could personally experience what it meant to feel one’s liver and gall freeze.

As she barely managed to turn her stiff neck, she had to face the person she absolutely didn’t want to encounter at the moment.